OVERVIEW

Founded in 1853 in New Orleans, Phelps Dunbar is one of the oldest law firms in continuous practice in the South. Our firm is a progressive and diverse partnership, with a practice that is international in scope. We now have offices in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Jackson, Tupelo, and Gulfport, Mississippi; Houston, Texas; Tampa, Florida; and London, England. We continue to look for expansion opportunities as we seek to become the Southeast’s premier regional law firm.

Through our network of regional offices, clients have access to more than 240 attorneys representing an extensive range of talent and experience. No matter how intricate a client’s legal needs, the firm’s professional depth and experience offer accessible, cost-effective, and reliable service.

We continually refocus our major practice areas to serve the changing needs of our client community. Attorneys in all practice areas work together to provide a broad base of legal services to institutions and individuals. We handle virtually every type of civil case in federal and state courts across the region, and regularly provide legal services in the following areas:

• Admiralty
  
• Appellate Litigation
  
• Bankruptcy and Creditors' Rights
  
• Business and Finance
  
• Commercial Litigation
  
• Construction
  
• Corporate and Securities
  
• Employee Benefits/Executive Compensation
  
• Environmental
  
• Gaming
  
• Health Care
  
• HIPAA Compliance
  
• Insurance and Reinsurance
  
• Intellectual Property
  
• Labor and Employment
  
• Municipal Finance
  
• Oil and Gas, Energy and Minerals
  
• Products Liability
  
• Public Utilities and Electric Power
  
• Railroad
  
• Real Estate
  
• Regulatory and Governmental Matters
  
• Tax
  
• Tort Litigation
  
• Toxic Tort Litigation
  
• Trusts and Estates
  

Our clients include public and private companies, financial institutions, insurance companies, health care systems, educational institutions, partnerships, estates, governmental agencies and individuals.

LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT

Our regional labor and employment practice consists of 30 attorneys located in our New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Jackson and Tampa offices. We believe that the strength of our practice is our attorneys, including a former state court judge, two former trial attorneys with the National Labor Relations Board, a board certified tax attorney, a board certified labor attorney, and a member of the American Arbitration Association Advisory Counsel for Employment Law Disputes who is also a panelist for their Panel of Neutrals.

We represent management clients of varying sizes, with respect to virtually any labor or employment law issue, including labor relations, employment discrimination and harassment, safety and health, civil rights and constitutional law, and human resources and performance management. Our clients include private and public employers, business organizations, and trade associations. Representative clients include Fortune 500 companies, power and telephone utility companies, and public employers. Attorneys handle a broad array of administrative charges and investigations before administrative agencies, such as:

• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission;
  
• U.S. Department of Labor;
  
• Occupational Safety & Health Administration;
  
• Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs;
  
• Employment Standards Administration;
  
• Wage-Hour Division; and
  
• U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
  

We also represent clients in all phases of arbitration and litigation in both federal and state courts. The facets of our representation range from responding to “demand” letters or “charges” of discrimination/harassment to answering complaints, conducting discovery and pretrial proceedings, selecting juries and handling trials and/or appeals. As part of our practice, we also defend state agencies, municipalities, and public officials in constitutional and civil rights suits that arise from employment relationships. We also routinely assist individuals to obtain permanent residency and temporary work permits such as L-1s, H-1s, H-2s. We have a number of staff members who are fluent in Spanish and other foreign languages. Our labor and employment attorneys also advise clients in matters involving unions, including:

• Maintaining union free status
  
• Preventive personnel decisions
  
• Union election campaigns
  
• Strikes and boycotts
  
• Negotiation of labor contracts
  
• Arbitration of disputes
  
• Litigation of unfair labor practices.
  

An important part of our practice involves planning and employment advices. Specifically, we provide human resources management and/or corporate counsel advice about:

• Performance evaluation/appraisal systems;
  
• Reductions in force;
  
• Development of employment policies and practices;
  
• Employee handbooks;
  
• Preparation of affirmative action programs for government contractors;
  
• Discipline systems;
  
• Workplace harassment and misconduct investigations;
  
• Supervisor/employee training;
  
• Employment issues related to mergers and acquisitions;
  
• Alternative dispute resolution, including mediation; and
  
• Development of alternative dispute resolution programs.
  

EMPLOYEE BENEFITS / EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION

Our regional labor and employment practice consists of over 30 attorneys located in our New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Jackson, Tupelo, and Tampa offices. These attorneys advise private, tax-exempt, and public employers on a full range of employee benefit matters, including the design and implementation of ESOPs and other qualified retirement plans, the design and implementation of welfare benefit plans, participant communications, fiduciary issues, prohibited transactions and correction matters. Our employee benefits attorneys also counsel clients on ERISA issues such as investment policy statements, use of employer securities, plan administration, claims review procedures, privilege issues, and employee education.

Executive compensation matters handled by this practice include golden parachute arrangements, SERPs, excess and restoration plans, stock option and other long-term incentive plans, split dollar arrangements, executive employment and retention agreements, and other forms of non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements.

This practice also focuses on the impact of benefit programs on financial reporting, special concerns related to tax-exempt and public employers, the employment law aspects of employee benefits and special compensation concerns of the health care industry. The group provides corporate and securities laws advice related to retirement plans, long-term incentive plans and other executive compensation arrangements, such as corporate governance issues, registration statements, proxy statements and Rule 144 and Rule 16b-3.

In addition to traditional counseling, we are involved in all aspects of employee benefits litigation and administrative proceedings, including Department of Labor and Internal Revenue Service audits, correction procedures and fiduciary and benefit litigation.

Historically, the employee benefits practice group has focused on public companies, mid-sized to large closely-held companies, partnerships, service providers in the employee benefits industry, and public employers.